


Republic Nine-Nine

by akathecentimetre



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: AU madness, Cool motive still murder, Multi, meep morp zeep, what sort of woman doesn't own an axe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-04-05 16:43:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4187265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akathecentimetre/pseuds/akathecentimetre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The adventures of a certain galactic police precinct; Or, in which The Chosen One makes a bet so he can shave off Kenobi’s beard, Yoda’s knitting needles are <i>really</i> frickin’ sharp, and Detective Amidala wants to kill everyone just so she can get a little peace and quiet. I.e.: Brooklyn Nine-Nine AU!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Episode 1

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note to start us off – there are going to be 23 parts to this story’s “season” which will roughly cover a couple of major plots from the prequel trilogy, but I’m not a) rewriting each episode or b) going to have a full episode storyline in each piece. Think of this more as a collection of your favorite prequel-era SW characters in some of your favorite B99 situations. Hope you enjoy it!

*

The last Smorgasburg of August is a sweltering affair; the Brooklyn waterfront is stuffed to the gills with people, baby carriages so large they might as well be tanks, construction equipment, and – of most interest to Qui-Gon Jinn, police sergeant of the 99 – a little cluster of tents which hold all the delights of the season’s last decent cider, freshly-baked baklava, ramen burgers, and plum-tarragon soda.

He’ll need all the calories he can get on this job to deal with Obi-Wan’s outfit.

“Seriously, could you _be_ any more hipster?”

Obi-Wan is trailing in his wake with his mouth full of a cinnamon doughnut, his badge bouncing on the chain around his neck. “What?” he scarfs, sugar in his beard. “It’s just a hat, Qui.”

“Beanie,” Qui rumbles, leaning against a chain-link fence while he’s in line and willing it to go faster. “It’s a slouch beanie, and those are skinny jeans, and you are _never_ allowed to dress casual within my sight again.”

“He-ey,” says a mop-haired whirlwind, and both Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan stifle a groan. “What’s happening, bros? Mine,” Anakin says, happily plucking the remainder of Obi-Wan’s doughnut out of its wrapper. “Also mine,” he adds, stealing a steaming fry from the bunch that has appeared in Qui-Gon’s hand, and then, inevitably –

“So, new Captain, huh? You gonna finally tell us about him, Qui?”

And so it continues, for fucking _hours_ , until Qui-Gon really, really just wants to stuff Detective Skywalker’s head in the nearest overflowing trashcan, and Detective Kenobi has complained far too many times about his blooming sunburn (“I’m fucking _English_ , I can’t believe you forgot the 70 SPF”) and Qui-Gon is ruing the moment this morning when he’d agreed to go out into the field again – for the day, one-time offer only because they were short-staffed, no sidearm – when it meant being on the clock with these two.

They finally spot their mark around 4pm, and it is by far the best moment of Qui-Gon’s week to see Kenobi and Skywalker chase him, shedding sunglasses and hats haphazardly along the way, skittering through the crowds with Kenobi squawking about cheating and Skywalker belting out something that sounds rude enough to provoke a lawsuit against the Department. The final act, where Skywalker tackles the perp right off the boardwalk and into the water under the Brooklyn Bridge, is just the icing on the cake.

Skywalker cheerfully sings ‘My arrest’ to the tune of _Edelweiss_ all the way back to the station, which nearly makes Qui-Gon want to reach back and clock him. Again. But, he supposes eventually, doing that to a twenty-two-year-old prodigy who had just caught a serial child kidnapper would be just a bit unfair.

*

The new Captain arrives promptly at 8:55 the next morning, just after Kenobi has managed to gingerly maneuver himself and his cracking skin (and, thankfully, his familiar spick-and-span suit) out of his chair and over to Skywalker’s desk, where the younger detective is giving his best impression of a broken-down droid from _Star Wars_.

It’s a long, hard fight for Qui-Gon to make himself sit upright and _not_ duck down behind his desk and snigger at the sight of Mace Windu’s quietly thunderous entrance.

“Is that your impression of me, Detective?”

“Oh. Oh-h-h, hey! Captain,” Anakin says, flashing his most 100-wattish grin and sending a series of winks around the room as a sign that he’s totally got this. (He hasn't got this.) “I was just – ”

“Clean your desk,” Windu says, and then turns away from Anakin’s adorably-baffled face. “Everyone,” he announces, and there is a pleasing ripple of standing at attention around the station which, for a moment, makes Qui-Gon think that everything is going to be vaguely okay. “I’m your new commanding officer. I look forward to getting to know you all, and to working with you to make this the best and most efficient precinct in Brooklyn. Dismissed – oh, and Sergeant Jinn? A word.”

Qui-Gon tries very hard to ignore Anakin’s muffled squeaking, and Obi-Wan’s not-so-muffled sigh of complete and utter contentedness, as he follows Captain Windu into his office and shuts the door. “Congratulations, sir. It’s an honor.”

“And an honor to be working with you again.” Windu’s tone is as crisp as his uniform, without a hint of emotion. Just like old times. “I hear you’re not in the field at the moment.”

“No, sir. There was an Incident.”

“I’ve read about it. No need to rehash it again.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Tell me about my team?”

The window out onto the precinct is halfway shuttered, and Qui-Gon pulls the shade all the way up just to make sure everyone outside of the office are well aware they’re being watched. Oh, but revenge is sweet. “Detectives Cody and Rex Fett. First set of twins the precinct’s ever had,” he starts, gesturing to where the two brothers are conferring over cups of coffee so full of sugar only they could enjoy them. They’d managed to break each coffee machine the office had ever had within three days of their being bought in order to produce the exact same mugs of sludge. “They’re good detectives, but they don’t get out much.”

The first twitch of displeasure finds its way across Windu’s face. “If they’re that good, why do they look like they’ve spent the last ten years being deskjockeys?”

“It’s mostly muscle,” Qui-Gon says, apropos of nothing. “It’s more that if they were forced to go out they’d wreak havoc, sir. They’re best chained in here with the paperwork.”

“Ah. I see. Or maybe I don’t. Carry on.”

“Yoda’s our civilian administrator,” Qui-Gon says, pointing at the bun of bright, neon-green hair in front of Mace’s office, which is stuck through with especially-sharpened knitting needles. “She’s a bit crazy. There’s a betting pool on how old she actually is, since she never filled in her age on her employment paperwork.”

“Put me down for fifty-six.”

Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow. “You know something we don’t?”

“You’d be surprised.”

Detective Bail Organa is an easy read. Hardworking, principled, a bit pathetic, best friends with Detective Kenobi, wishes he was best friends with Detective Skywalker. His blog on the many and various ice cream parlors of the City has just won an award, which means free samples for the entire station.

“No,” Windu deadpans, and Qui-Gon makes a mental note to head off that afternoon’s deliveries. Damn – he’d really been looking forward to the sea-salt-and-caramel-peanut-butter-brownie-crunch frozen yogurt, too.

By the time they’ve turned their attention to her, Detective Padme Amidala is in the middle of smashing her locked filing cabinet open with a sledgehammer from the precinct’s arsenal, tousled hair and black leather flying.

“She went to the Academy with Skywalker,” Qui-Gon says faintly (said other detective is currently seeing how many times he can throw his prized rubber-band ball against the back of Kenobi’s head before he snaps, which should be any minute now). “Easy to imagine, right?”

“No,” Windu says slowly, almost – for him – in awe, as he watches Amidala sit back down, put her big-booted feet up on her desk, and grin straight at him, all sharp white teeth. “No, it is not.”

“Detective Kenobi,” Qui-Gon says hurriedly, moving on to far safer waters. “An excellent detective, and a good colleague. He’ll do right by you as long as he isn’t harassed into some sort of stupidity by the others. Or if he’s feeling particularly Organized.”

As if he knows he’s being talked about, Obi-Wan looks up, and then quickly pushes one of his stacks of case files slightly out of alignment with the others, presumably to conceal the fact that everything on his desk exists in perfect parallel and perpendicular lines. He lasts approximately five seconds, his ears reddening rapidly, before he shoves it back into its proper place and scoots off, clearly muttering to himself, to the break room.

“And Skywalker,” Windu intones, his arms folded.

“Our very best detective, sir. Problem is – he knows it.”

Anakin is busy arranging himself in the perfect pose of a desperate courtesan across Obi-Wan’s papers. His faux-anguished wail of “ _Draw me like one of your Manhattan girls_ ” is loud enough not only to filter through to the Captain’s office, but to pull Obi-Wan back out into the open like a bear stung by a bee.

“I want to make this the best police station in this City, Sergeant,” Windu says, tearing himself away from the scene of escalating chaos outside with, Qui-Gon suspects, minimal effort. “I’ve waited too long for a command to screw it up now. Can I count on you?”

“You absolutely can, sir,” Qui-Gon replies, knowing that, at this point – with his shoulder and his head still very much in need of healing – he can’t expect himself to give much other than his word. “Where do we start?”

Windu raises a very slow eyebrow right as Anakin starts screeching, and the sledgehammer hits something with a clang that suggests it probably shouldn’t have been hit.

“We start with _him_.”

*

**TBC**

*


	2. Episode 2

*

“Today’s the day, Kenobi. You ready to lose?”

“Over my dead body, Skywalker.”

“Oh, so I’m going to win _and_ you’ll be dead? Extra motivation!”

Anakin fucking loves Obi-Wan’s ‘I’m in a royal snit’ face, and besides its glorious appearance this morning it’s one he’s looking forward to enjoying on a daily basis as soon as he’s won the bet – if, that is, Windu lets them finish it at all.

“What’s this all about, gentlemen?”

“We’ve had a bet going for the past year, sir,” Anakin chirps, grinning over at Obi-Wan’s desk. “Whoever racks up the most felony arrests in 365 days wins.”

“I see. That would explain your stellar figures in recent weeks,” Windu says tonelessly, peering at both of them over the top of his glasses. “And the stakes?”

“If I win, Anakin does my paperwork for six months,” Obi-Wan says defiantly. “With an extra week added on for every report filed incorrectly.”

“And if _I_ win, which I will,” Anakin smirks, “I take Obi-Wan racecar driving, which’ll be awesome since he’s terrified of speed – ”

“I am _fine_ with driving, what _you_ do is _suicide_ – ”

“Oh, and I get to publicly shave off his beard.”

It’s kind of amazing, Anakin thinks gleefully, how a very physical shudder goes ‘round the office every time that second part of his prize is mentioned. He’s starting to think that Kenobi showing up without his whiskers is going to give the entire precinct a massive collective coronary.

“The board in the briefing room tells me you are tied as of this morning,” Windu says, eyebrows raised. “Good luck and godspeed, detectives.”

Their scramble for the door is less than dignified. Padme is outright sniggering at her desk, which is just frightening.

Come five p.m., Anakin finds Obi-Wan flush with victory and being applauded by most of the station (Bail is really too fucking enthusiastic) as he marks a new tally on the board and then turns to accept the adulation, arms spread out wide.

“Better get ready for carpal tunnel, Skywalker,” he says, grinning, and oh man, it is kind of gorgeously happy-making when Obi-Wan is genuinely upbeat about something and tuned into the job so tight that he lives and breathes it. “Two hundred and sixty-three. Read it and weep!”

“Uh-huh,” Anakin says casually, and across the room he can sense both Padme and Qui-Gon watching them both rather intently. “Yeah, about that, Kenobi – ”

“Where d’you want ‘em, boss?”

“Processing is fine, thanks,” he yawns, and hah, _hah_ , he wishes he has a camera for the moment of collapse on Kenobi’s face as the uniformed cop from downstairs leads through his catches of the day. “Prostitution ring,” he crows, energy suddenly surging through him as he saunters forward and plucks the whiteboard marker out of Obi-Wan’s hand. “Four of them are on felony charges, which I think you will find puts me on… Two. Hundred. And. Sixty. SIX.”

His celebration dance is so long that he nearly misses Yoda scuttling out of her chair and giving Obi-Wan’s beard a thorough stroking.

“What the _actual f –_ Yoda, get _off –_ ”

“Wanted to touch it once more before it vanishes, I did,” she says mournfully.

“It’s okay, Obi, I know of several highly-recommended products either for hair growth or skincare – ”

“Oh my god, Bail, _shut up –_ ”

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Anakin announces, jumping atop his desk. “You are all _cordially_ invited this evening to the Monticello Motor Club, where you will be treated to the _highly_ entertaining sight of Detective Kenobi vomiting at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, followed by his parting from his beloved facial hair. Who’s coming?”

The hope on Obi-Wan’s face as no one pipes up needs to be crushed, immediately. “Oh, and pizza on me.”

“Done.”

“I’m in.”

“What kind of pizza? You know how picky I am.”

“Hawaiiannnnnn.”

Two hours later, Anakin is enjoying fastening Obi-Wan up into his track gear way, _way_ too much.

“C’mon, dude – you can’t be _that_ freaked out by it. I mean, I’m hoping you are because otherwise this wouldn’t be a proper revenge, but really. You’ve been on Padme’s motorcycle before.”

“Because she _tied_ me to it,” Obi-Wan hisses, his face pale and his arms out by his sides as Anakin smugly settles the zip under his chin.

“Did she, now? Kinky.”

“I hate you. For the record.”

“Aw, Obikins. I love you too.”

“Chop chop, loverboys,” Yoda hollers down from the viewing stand. “The free drinks here, not enough they are.”

“She amazes me,” Obi-Wan says vaguely, as Anakin shoves a crash helmet into his arms and then ushers him into the passenger seat of his lovingly-maintained rustbucket of a Subaru Impreza. He’s spent years tinkering with this particular collection of bolts, getting majorly in debt in the process, and he knows just how he’s going to use her to give Obi-Wan a good time.

“Obi-Wan, R2,” he says, gesturing expansively around the interior in between doing up his race harness. “R2, Obi-Wan, who promises not to break you or get any chunks on your dashboard.”

“Charmed,” Obi-Wan says, managing to sound both queasy and generally disgusted with the universe even when muffled through his helmet. “Can we get this over with?”

“All in good time, m’colleague,” Anakin says archly, and then, as the track warning light goes green for them to enter from the pitlane, he whoops as loud as he can, throws the gearstick forward, and guns it.

He’s enjoying himself so much for the first few laps, lost in the sound of the engine revving and the gears clunking and the tires squealing, that he almost forgets that he’s supposed to be torturing Obi-Wan as much as possible. When he finally does glance over, though, halfway through lap 4, he thinks he’s succeeded, because Kenobi’s got his hands up and clutching hard at the roll cage, the skin around his eyes the most delicately perfect shade of green.

“Enjoying yourself?” Anakin yells over the din.

It takes four corners for Kenobi to squeeze out the inevitable swearing and damnation that follows, which just makes Anakin giggle even harder.

It’s also inevitable, of course, since Anakin’s life is apparently cursed, that Windu is going to spoil their fun, though Anakin has to admit that this is taking his spoilsport-ness to an entirely new level.

“ _Kenobi, Skywalker_ ,” he says over the radio, crisp and professional as ever. “ _We just got a call about those people-smugglers you two have been chasing; seems there might have been a sighting in some warehouses on the waterfront. I suggest you park up and get back to the City._ ”

“Oh, thank all the gods,” Obi-Wan moans.

It takes nearly half the drive back to Brooklyn for him to regain some proper color in his face – he’s driving, too, after leaping out of Qui-Gon’s supporting arms and to the door of his car with a horrendous yelp when Anakin offered to take the wheel – and much longer than that for Anakin to stop complaining.

“Revenge merely postponed, Kenobi,” he warns with a stern point of his finger, pulling his backpack out of Obi-Wan’s back seat as they park in Red Hook. “I’ve got a straight razor in here and I’m not afraid to use it.”

“I’m resigned to my fate, Skywalker, never fear,” Obi-Wan drawls, rolling his eyes as he locks his door and then takes a deep breath of salty East River air. “Let’s get moving.”

They set up a stakeout on the roof of an abandoned building, occasionally passing a pair of binoculars back and forth in order to keep an eye on the warehouse in question, and despite everything Anakin finds it kind of – nice, actually, to be sitting here in the dark with Obi-Wan, passing a bag of stale pretzels back and forth and pointing whenever they miraculously see a star shining through the clouds and New York’s light-polluted sky.

“So,” Anakin asks at one point – “is this the worst bet you’ve ever made?”

“Nah. I ended up serenading a girl in middle school once. I had to switch school districts to outrun the shame.”

“That – sounds surprisingly like you, yeah.”

“Shut up. You?”

“Lost a car once. My pride and joy,” Anakin says, with a long, melodramatic sigh which he knows conceals real regret. “Blue chrome bumpers. Oh, my poor baby.”

“And that sounds a _lot_ like _you_ ,” Obi-Wan says, and then he yawns, and leans back against a pile of bricks on the ripped-up rooftop. “Wake me when there’s movement.”

“Oh, hey – no way, mister. You’re getting shaved,” Anakin grins, pulling the straight-razor and a very expensive brand of foam out of his bag. “Say goodbye to _your_ pride and joy.”

“Sure thing, Skywalker,” Obi-Wan mumbles.

“Hey. Dude. I took lessons with a barber and everythi – ”

But it’s no use; Kenobi is asleep, and looking way too goddamn peaceful for Anakin to even contemplate touching him.

 _Asshole_ , Anakin thinks mildly as he puts the razor down and picks up the binoculars again, and, somehow, finds himself smiling. _How dare he look so comfortable and put-together and attractive –_

_Huh._

_Okay, that’s a weird thought_.

_But seriously, who wears a tailored suit on a stakeout?_

_Oh my god, Skywalker, shut the fuck up._

There’s movement at the warehouse door around 1am, and it only takes the slightest of touches to wake Obi-Wan up, and does he ever get up; he’s halfway down the stairs with his sidearm out and primed within thirty seconds, with Anakin pounding in his wake, and by the time it’s two a.m. and they’ve dragged their quarry back to the station in handcuffs and the adrenaline is starting to wear off, Anakin’s forgotten all about the razor in his bag.

He stays over at Padme’s that night, which he knows he’s not supposed to do on a worknight – but it turns out she’s stayed up to wait for him anyway, a smirk on her lips and half a bottle of wine waiting open on her coffee table.

“So. Did you do it?”

“Nah. He’s got some persuasive puppy eyes,” Anakin bluffs, shrugging expansively. “I’ll pounce on him in a week or two, maybe.”

“Nice. Bail owes me twenty bucks.”

“Wait,” Anakin says, wide-eyed as he scooches in close to her on the couch. “You had a bet on whether or not I’d go through with it?”

“Shyeah. You’re a wuss.”

“Sure am,” Anakin yawns, and steals a quick kiss on her cheek before she decides to whack him. “Also – what’s this I hear about you tying Obi-Wan to your bike?”

“Anakin?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

“Yes ma’am,” Anakin says, and grins into the dark.

*

**TBC**

*


	3. Episode 3

*

The first time Anakin notices that things are going wrong is when Padme beats him thoroughly to the punch about _Die Hard_ being the best cop movie all time. She anticipates him by two whole seconds, which is just – _wrong_ , and weird, and sleeping with someone isn’t supposed to make them telepathic around you. Is it?

The second time is when Obi-Wan comes freakin’ _moonwalking_ out of the break room, having just notched up another felony on their quickly-renewed tally sheet, and sings ‘slump’ over and over in a suspiciously-perfect tenor falsetto all the way past Anakin’s desk. Even the surreptitious addition of salt to his coffee half an hour later by Anakin’s hand fails to ruin his mood, which is also Wrong.

By the time Anakin's in the briefing room and Windu’s eyebrows are rising higher and higher at his list of unsolved cases (“No, no suspects in that one” – “No, no evidence” – “Nope, nada, nietereno”), he’s realizing that he might actually have a problem.

“I do not _slump_ , guys. But _if_ , okay, _hypothetically_ , do any of you have any _sensible_ advice?”

“Fly to Miami, fuck a stranger,” Padme says without looking up from her desk, and oh _man_ , either he is going to pay for this or she is going to get it so bad, because _what?_

“Get divorced,” Bail says mournfully. “But that would require a few other steps first, in your case.”

“Yyyyyeah. Qui-Gon?”

“Ten thousand sit-ups.”

“Oh-kay. Again, in my case, three is more likely – ”

“Come up with a big lie about how it’s all a conspiracy?” Yoda yawns, and hey, _that_ sounds pretty nice.

“Hey, I kinda like that. Maybe I’ll look through my arrest records and see if anyone’s escaped recently – ”

If Obi-Wan rolls his eyes any harder they’ll fall right the fuck out of his head. “Right, and this hypothetical vengeful perp has been trailing you around and making sure _all_ of your evidence gets mislaid and _all_ of your suspects skip town right in time.”

“Ex _act_ ly.”

Windu is already at Obi-Wan’s shoulder when the other detective sniggers his way out. “How about you just follow a case until it’s _done_ , Skywalker? I find that actual hard work usually does the trick.” The Captain’s voice is heavy with what might be sarcasm. Though given that it’s him, it could just as easily be nothing at all.

“I think I’m cursed,” Anakin complains, just as he turns sideways and manages to get a blast of steam bursting up into his face from the suddenly and suspiciously malfunctioning coffee machine.

“Ah,” Windu says slowly. “Anything else of note happened this week?”

“Ow, ow, _fucking_ ow,” Anakin yelps, scrubbing at his eyes. “Uh – my plumbing burst in several places, my car broke down – ”

“Hm,” the Captain says, and then suddenly he’s all business. “You’re out of the field, Skywalker. Paperwork for the next week at least. We can’t have your misfortune affecting the entire precinct.”

“What!”

“You heard me.”

“You never struck me as the superstitious type, Captain,” Anakin whines, but it’s pretty much all over by that point.

He spends two whole days at his desk before he decides absolutely and definitively that yep, he is going to die of this soon. His stacks of paperwork have gotten taller, if anything, rather than shorter, and the huge list of escaped perps (this many? Really? What the hell are the correction officers of New York State _doing_ with their time?) which might have it out for him is long and disturbing enough that he’s thinking of hiring Qui-Gon away from the Department as a personal bodyguard by the time he’s halfway through it.

“Hey, take this,” Padme says one night, when he’s done with his rant of the day and she’s taken off her headphones once she’s convinced that he’s finally shut up. She throws him a little talisman, a bone of some sort on a leather thong.

“What on earth's this?”

“Good-luck charm. Get rubbing.”

“Oh, hell no. You don’t believe this curse thing, do you, babe?”

“Nuh-uh,” she says as he takes a step, her scowl and sharply pointing finger sending him skittering back. “I ain’t risking it. You’re sleeping elsewhere until you’re fixed, loverboy.”

On the fifth day, Cody and Rex solve a case of his that was previously unsolvable without even leaving the precinct when a lost box of evidence mysteriously turns up and is trundled right to their conjoined desks, and Anakin has freakin’ had enough.

“RIGHT,” he blares, and turns away from the twins’ muffled sniggers. “Where’s that list of perps out and on bail? I am not cursed, this is fucking _sabotage_.”

“Ah, denial. First stage of grief: achieved,” Obi-Wan says tremulously from across the room. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mourn the passing of Soon-to-be-Ex-Detective Anakin Skywalker’s puny, miniscule, microscopic talent…”

“A-HAH! Obi-Wan, look – Grievous has been out for the past two weeks on parole. I think we’re due to have a little chat. Care to join?”

“Good lord, no. I still have bruises from last time – ”

But by the time Anakin’s swept a glance eagerly around the office everyone else has already disappeared under their desks – with the exception of Qui-Gon, who, not being on field duty, is looking unbearably smug – and when Obi-Wan realizes he’s been had he is typically ungracious in defeat.

“You are insane,” he grumbles at Anakin all the way through the precinct as they shrug on jackets and check their pockets for all the essentials, which in this case means they’re taking along most of a box of tear gas grenades (which probably isn’t enough). “The man is a _machine_ when it comes to beating up cops. If he had wanted to do something to you he’d have just come round to your place and shot you in the head, not set about ruining your life.”

“Yeah, well,” Anakin says faintly, as they round the corner to the precinct’s parking lot and he suddenly feels the urge to stop dead. “At least I’m not cursed, or in a slump, as it turns out.”

“What?”

“Well, _look!_ ”

It would have been funny to see a perp, or indeed anyone, apparently thinking that destroying a cop’s personal property was a good idea, standing there in the middle of the lot with large chunks of the upholstery of Anakin’s car scattered around him – and that comical look on his face that Grievous always got when he was caught doing the many, many things that have been attributed to him over the years only makes it more amusing. Unfortunately, given that Grievous is not only an idiot but a eight-foot-tall bodybuilding Russian mobster, the only thing that’s going to be (not at all) funny about this is probably the size of Anakin and Obi-Wan’s fast-approaching hospital bills.

“I’m not cursed!” Anakin yelps happily, in between punches to the ribs; Obi-Wan is already out of it, hopping around clutching one foot and swearing up a filthy blue streak after having had the gloriously stupid idea that kicking Grievous in the shin might somehow slow him down. Thirty seconds after _that_ Anakin has definitely broken something, Obi-Wan is upside-down and possibly unconscious in the remnants of Anakin’s car’s back seats, and, thank _god_ , the cavalry have arrived and Grievous has, intelligently (for him) decided that he probably can’t outrun the pellets from the shotgun an incandescently-furious (and oh-so-gorgeous) Padme is aiming at his skull.

“Hey,” Anakin pants, dragging himself, grinning, over to what was once his Chevy Imapala (oh _god_ , the rebuild costs are going to be enormous and he’s _definitely_ suing the entire Russian mafia of New York for damages this time). “You okay?”

Obi-Wan lets out only a groan in reply, and promptly crashes down flat in the wreckage from where he had been left standing on his head. “Anakin?” he says through the scraps of leather and foam, muffled and most definitely aggrieved.

“Uh-huh?”

“Next time you decide to get in a fucking slump, I shall require at least two months’ warning.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Vacation deals don’t come cheap on short notice.”

Anakin starts laughing, as you do, and doesn’t stop until the anesthesia kicks in. _Oh, what a lovely day…_

*

**TBC**

*


	4. Episode 4

*

Padme’s rules for starting her yearlong relationship with Anakin had been very simple.

No one gets to know, because cops don’t date cops. Minimal touching allowed at work, if at all. Sex happens at her place, never at his (for reasons of basic hygiene as well as mental comfort). He is to keep all endearments to a minimum. She will try to smile more when he’s around, though frankly why he needs such a sign to be assured of her feelings she will never know.

He’s been putting one of those rules to a sore test this week, and it’s starting to get on more than just her nerves. Padme is used to being a secondary – it’s less work, in general, but just as satisfying, to follow on a case and watch a colleague be brilliant rather than having full responsibility (she picks and chooses her cases carefully, and anyway, she’s got this months-long drugs task force to run, after all). Anakin, on the other hand, always needs to shine the brightest, and he’s taken to being assigned as Bail’s secondary this week with unbelievably bad grace.

First he’d bunked off on Monday to come over to her desk and tell her bad jokes for an hour when he was supposed to be doing paperwork, only stopping when she’d thrown an unhinged stapler at his head. On Tuesday, it was Obi-Wan who bore the brunt of Anakin’s laziness as he accompanied him on patrols he didn’t need to be on, while Bail wandered around the station looking increasingly nettled that his ME report on his dead body _du jour_ – which Anakin had been assigned to fetch – hadn’t come in yet.

By Wednesday, after he’s ambushed her in the dark hallway that leads down to records (nearly losing his ear in the process because really, who _does_ that and what sort of woman doesn’t always carry a spring-loaded penknife in their jacket pocket for exactly this sort of thing?) and insisted on stealing several more kisses than she’s ever given him on Police Department property, she’s sick and fucking tired of it, and almost of him.

“What the hell gives? You know we shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I’m so freakin’ _bored_ ,” he sighs, and it takes everything Padme has not to roll her eyes. “Bail’s super _methodical_ and _slow_ and okay _fine_ I guess he gets results – once he’s done blogging for the day, oh my god, have you tried those fries he gets from the place around the corner? – but I’d much rather be here with you. Doing this. Y’know,” Anakin grins, and nods, apparently thinking her approval is forthcoming.

It so, so isn’t. But he’s pretty far gone, and she’s thinking she’s going to need allies on this one.

*

This also happens to be the week that Captain Windu decides that he needs to get his best cop on his way back into the field. He has no illusions that it will be an easy task – especially when Qui-Gon starts demonstrating his prodigious talent for vanishing (no mean feat for such a big man) about two minutes before each of the Captain’s attempts to poke his head out of his door and call the Sergeant into his office for some Straight Talk.

Yoda, unexpectedly, turns out to be a more effective messenger, and gets Qui-Gon down into the firing range in the precinct’s basement using nothing but the pretext that a particularly heavy box needed moving, and there was no way she was doing it by herself (“Fresh nails need chipping? They do not”).

“What’s this?” Qui-Gon says suspiciously, and looks even more put out when Windu holds out a police-issue Glock and a set of protective headphones.

“Yoda and I are here to be your witnesses for your firearms re-certification, Sergeant. I need my best shot back in the field.”

“Somehow, sir, I doubt that very much,” Qui-Gon grouses. Something in his left shoulder has gone stiff. Behind him, Yoda tuts and rolls her eyes.

“Not your fault, Xanatos was,” she drawls. “Completely up himself, the little arse. Quit just in time to get you shot.”

“ _We_ got _ourselves_ shot, and I was in charge,” Qui-Gon says sharply. He looms over even Windu in the semi-dark of the range, all muscle and barely-suppressed anxiety. “Sir, I’m not ready for this. I request that you respect my decision – ”

“I have,” Windu interrupts. “For three months. We _need_ you, Jinn. And I refuse to sanction the retirement of such a fine officer to a desk for the rest of his career. So,” he finishes, putting the Glock firmly into one of Qui-Gon’s big hands – ”take the shot, Sergeant.”

*

It’s easy to recruit Obi-Wan, in the end. Padme’s spent three days and nights scowling in Anakin’s direction as Bail starts to get visibly irritated (which is super weird, considering how Bail’s normal range of expressions usually just runs from ‘hoping Obi-Wan still loves him’ to ‘hoping Anakin will notice him one day’), and it turns out he’s not the only one. Kenobi’s frown lines have been getting deeper and deeper since Tuesday, and his usual placid demeanor sours a little more every time Bail heads out to the crime scene or the forensics lab alone, and it only takes a nod or two exchanged between him and Padme for them both to corner Anakin on Thursday afternoon, each putting a friendly hand on his shoulder as they head out of the main office towards the exit.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says sweetly, and tightens his grip. Padme nearly giggles. This is going to be _fun_. “Might we have a word?”

“Sure. Just give me a sec, I need to get out into some fresh non-Organaic air. Get it? I thought of that one all by myself – ”

“Hey,” Obi-Wan barks, and then he stops both him and Anakin in their tracks, grabs hold of a fistful of the front of Anakin’s shirt, and pushes him into the corridor wall so he’s sure the younger detective is paying attention. It’s a good strategy, Padme knows (she knows _very_ well), in getting Anakin to shut the hell up and listen, since he apparently enjoys being dominated so much.

(The fact that Obi-Wan knows this particular trick should probably disturb Padme more than it does. In fact, she finds it sort of sickeningly, awful-ly cute. Except she doesn’t do cute, which means – _argh, does not compute!_ )

Anyway, it’s working, because Anakin’s eyes have gone as wide as his grin and he’s looking down at Obi-Wan like he’s the only person left in the whole world. “Okay, old man,” he chirps. “What gives?”

“I’m thirty-fucking-four, Anakin, so don’t you start,” Obi-Wan says menacingly. “You need to stop ignoring Bail. He’s your _primary_ , you’re his _secondary_ , and he’s too good a cop to get this sort of crap from you. You hear me?”

“Geez,” Anakin whines, and looks sideways to Padme for support, but it only takes a nanosecond for her to refine her glare into something deadly and just like that, he’s withering. “Okay, okay,” he says weakly, flapping out his hands. “You’re preaching to the choir, Gramps. I got it.”

“Good,” Obi-Wan says, and promptly steps back, preening his way back into equanimity before he looks smugly over at Padme. “Good?”

“Good,” Padme nods.

Anakin watches Obi-Wan go for a few moments before turning back to Padme. “What was that all about?”

“Well I could hardly beat you up in front of the entire station for the third time this week,” she deadpans. “I’ve only ever done it twice in a week before, and you’ve never lived it down. They’d know something was up.”

“That is – surprisingly decent of you.”

“I know. Now buck up your ideas, or we’ll need to have a serious talk. No touching in the precinct. Got it?”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am!” he chirps, and scurries off to his desk.

An official apology follows the next day, right after Bail somehow manages to close the case perfectly despite Anakin’s distractions. Watching the two of them smile at each other – Organa had forgiven Skywalker right away, of course, the sap (though at least he’s a decent sap) – almost makes Padme smile during working hours.

Almost.

*

“Take the shot, Sergeant.”

“I’m getting there. Don’t rush me.”

“Breathe he must, first.”

“I _am_ fucking breathing!”

“Language, Sergeant. Hardly befitting your principles.”

“With all due respect, sir, my principles can go carnivorous and binge-drinking every night for all I care at this point.”

“Oh _dear_ ,” Yoda sighs, casually. “Feel sorry for your vegetarian friends, I do. And your local bartender.”

“I would appreciate it very much if you would _be sodding quiet_ , Yoda.”

“A need for that, I see not. Nothing fucking happening.”

The sequence of six shots happens so fast that Windu nearly misses it. Three head shots, three chest shots, all neatly and perfectly grouped.

He steps up next to Qui-Gon as the huge cop lowers his weapon, taking his sound-muffling headphones off of his ears. “Erm. Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir?”

“May I ask what brought that on?”

“The knowledge that I’d likely get fired for threatening a civilian with a loaded weapon, sir,” Qui-Gon says easily, ejecting the clip with a _thunk_. “I imagine an unloaded weapon, on the other hand, would only merit a suspension, so if you’ll excuse me – ”

Windu finds himself taking an unseemly amount of pleasure in watching his Sergeant chase his personal assistant around the range, one letting out the occasional bored, hoarse screech and the other indulging in a patiently furious diatribe about the importance of healthy eating and how she should _really_ try it sometime before he catches her and puts her in lockup, preferably with a muzzle.

He even allows himself one chuckle. Positively sinful.

*

**TBC**

*


	5. Episode 5

*

“For the last time, Bail, _no_ – I refuse to put on a costume that has been sitting around in the station and in god-knows-what-filth for ten years and go stakeout a warehouse party with you.”

“Obi- _Wan_. Live a little. Halloween’s the best holiday of the year!”

“Sure, in the strange, malodorous fantasy-world _you_ apparently live in…”

This particular bout of bickering has been going on for nearly an hour, and Anakin would be tired of it even if he didn’t have other plans.

“Okay, so Captain Windu’s Medal of Valor is in his locked safe. Which is locked in a cabinet. Which is in his locked office. All of which _to_ which only _he_ has the key, which is on his belt.”

“You’re going to lose this bet so hard.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m going to meet the midnight deadline with time to spare.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sure, it sounds crazy _now_ , but the promise of having the Captain do his paperwork for a month if Anakin managed to steal his medal had been too much to pass up, and so Anakin’s currently forcing his way into a janitor’s costume with all the enthusiasm of a five-year-old on a sugar rush while gleefully contemplating (and then despairing at) just how many favors he’s going to call in to make this work.

Oh, but the look on Windu’s face is going to be _sweet_.

“I’m going to regret this,” Kenobi grumbles, and when Anakin turns around it’s to find that Obi-Wan is indeed pulling on a(n extremely odorific) skeleton suit, nose wrinkled to the max as Bail, in some sort of – is that a chef’s outfit? – beams over his shoulder. “Bail?”

“Yes?”

“I hate you.”

“Love you too,” Organa chirps (he probably actually means it, is the sad part), and barrels them both out the door towards their incipient drugs bust. If Anakin weren’t preoccupied, he’d almost find them cute.

At eight p.m., Anakin manages to fall through the ceiling of Windu’s office in his (clearly failed) attempt to find a sneaky way in, at which the Captain is not amused even at all. (Padme laughs like a banshee at the sight of Anakin covered in flakes of foam insulation, which somehow doesn’t seem fair – she laughs in public like what, twice a year, and she wastes one of those times on making fun of her secret-boyfriend-maybe-not-even-a-boyfriend-because-she-hates-the-word-main-squeeze?)

By nine p.m., Obi-Wan and Bail are back, with Bail grinning over a whole pouchful of confiscated contraband and Obi-Wan shaking like a leaf, wide-eyed and walking very, very gingerly, as though he’s afraid something will shock him or slide down the back of his neck with each step.

“Eww,” Yoda says, looking at the party detritus that has somehow ended up all over Obi-Wan’s (now vaguely glistening) costume. “Is that – ”

“Don’t!” Obi-Wan yelps. He makes a right-angled turn and starts on an oddly wiggly, frog-stepping path towards the restrooms. “Please, don’t ask. I beg of you.”

“Isn’t Halloween the best?” Bail sighs happily. “Hey, check it out – I picked up some licorice-flavored beer on our way back for a break before we head back out there. My treat.”

Obi-Wan’s distant responding wail of despair sets Qui-Gon fucking _giggling_.

At ten p.m., with the crowd of drunk and disorderly pirates and witches in the bullpen growing by the minute, Anakin gets feathers up his nose from trying to force pigeons through the airvent into Windu’s office as a diversion, which is not pleasant even at all.

“I _hate_ Halloween,” Obi-Wan complains, loudly, as he’s gingerly stepping back into the (now vaguely washed) skeleton outfit – Bail, eager beaver that he is, is already out in the squad car ready for a second round. “Just – ugh, so much _anarchy._ ”

“C’mon, dude, lighten up,” Anakin says, sneezing out a few more scraps of fluff. “I’ll make it worth your while if you help me defeat Windu.”

“I’d rather you had the power to make everyone kind, sober, and fully-dressed.”

“Kind, sober, and fully-dressed. Aw, Obi-Wan,” Anakin grins. “We found the title of your sex tape.”

Kenobi’s head whips around so fast Anakin wouldn’t be surprised if he’d strained something. “My _what?_ ”

 _Oh, yeah_ , Anakin thinks gleefully. _That’s definitely going to become a Thing._

By eleven p.m., Anakin is not too big of a man to admit that he might be starting to panic. Well, little _pieces_ of the plan might be working, but it’s kind of getting close to crunch time, and the fact that the look on Windu’s face hasn’t changed a jot as he’s gone about his business all day isn’t exactly comforting. In fact, the only thing that’s keeping him going is watching Padme verbally torture Qui-Gon for having the temerity to poke around in her private life.

“I _knew_ you were softie at heart, Amidala. I called your old school – ”

“You did what.”

“And talked to an old dear by the name of Sister Jamilla who said you were a model student. Sweetness and light themselves.”

Padme leans forward over the sergeant’s desk, teeth bared in a fairly terrifying grin. “Fine. You know why I left that school?”

“Mmm?”

“I got accepted into a prestigious political development prep program.”

“Ohh,” Qui-Gon says, interest overtaking his glee. “You were going to be President someday, huh?”

“Yeah. But you know why I got kicked out of _that_ school?”

A shade of unease passes over Qui-Gon’s long face. “Why?”

Padme leans closer. “Because I kept beating the crap out of the pretty-boy hedge-fund kids who are actually _going_ to be President.”

Luckily for Padme – and perhaps unluckily for Qui-Gon – Rex chooses this exact moment to announce that “WE GOT A RUNNER!” and the pretty-boy hedge fund kid who hares across the precinct from lockup in his Tarzan outfit is the perfect target for Padme to bring down one-handed with a tremendous chop to the neck.

“Damn,” Qui-Gon says faintly. Anakin can’t help but grin like a loon. A proud, mildly horrified loon.

At 11:30 p.m., Bail arrives back from another successful bust and, after shuttling the drugs off to evidence, decides to take out his high spirits by lifting the skeleton-clad Obi-Wan up into a bear hug – which is when, with an audible ‘ _oof_ ’ from underneath the skull, it becomes clear that it is not, in fact, Obi-Wan in the costume.

“What the hell?” Bail says in bafflement as Cody sheepishly pulls off the mask. “Where’s Obi-Wan?”

“I dunno, man. He paid me fifty to take this shift.”

The subsequent shouting match which takes place between the two detectives in the break room (“You paid _money_ to get out of working with me?!” – “Not out of _working with you_ , Bail, just out of working with the stomach contents of a thousand and one drunk people on a collective bender in fucking _Bushwick –_ ”) sounds highly entertaining, but frankly, Anakin has more important things to do than enjoy it.

Falling down the side of the precinct building and getting halfway arrested for trespassing on police property was totally part of the plan, though Anakin wishes it didn’t damn well hurt quite so much. By the time Windu comes and finds him handcuffed in the interrogation room, however, the bleeding’s mostly stopped, so it’s all good.

“Skywalker,” Windu intones, sounding, for perhaps the first time, truly angry as he sits down and regards Anakin critically across his interlaced fingers. “You want to tell me what the hell you’re up to?”

“Winning our bet, Captain,” Anakin says, with his brightest smile. “Oh Bail?”

Bail takes his cue perfectly, marching in with Windu’s framed Medal of Valor under his elbow. “Sir,” he says happily, and quickly retreats, leaving Windu staring down at the prize in his hands.

“ _How_ did you – ”

“Ah, it was simple. Obi-Wan rappelled down through the hole in the ceiling and left the window unlocked for general entry and exit, Padme picked the locks – she’s weirdly good at that – Qui-Gon stole your phone and Bail dusted it for prints to figure out your common passcode. Ea-sy.”

Windu’s eyebrows rise a notch. “And how did you get them all to help you?”

“A rousing speech.”

“Really?”

“ – no. I promised to do their paperwork for the next month. Which I think you’ll find means _you’ll_ be doing it.”

“Hm.” Windu puts the medal down, takes off his glasses, and gives Anakin one of his trademark Piercing Glares. “I’m impressed, Skywalker. Have a nice night.”

“Thank you, sir – wait. Sir? Si-ir? Where are you going? I could stand to be un-handcuffed, ‘cause, you know, didn’t commit a crime.”

“…hello?”

“Anyone?”

It’s two a.m. by the time he wheedles his way out of lockup and makes his way back up to the main office, where he finds that, with the crowd of miscreants slowly tapering off, there’s an impromptu Actual to Goodness Halloween Party going on, centered around Obi-Wan, who’s wrapped up in an entire roll of yellow crime-scene tape, apologizing to Bail.

“Look, Bail, I’m sorry about tonight – ”

“‘I’m sorry about tonight.’ Obi-Wan’s follow-up sex tape, everyone!”

“Shut _up_ , Anakin.” Jeez, Organa and Kenobi should just start a double-act. Being that in unison is freakin’ creepy.

Anakin grins, and sidles through the crowd until he finds Padme, who is looking glorious as ever in a bedsheet-greek-goddess arrangement. “Hey, beautiful.”

“Hey yourself. Wanna get out of here?”

“Now _that_ sounds like my sort of holiday…”

*

**TBC**

*


	6. Episode 6

*

It takes the squad so long to recover to recover from Halloween that it’s no time at all before they reach _Anakin’s_ least-favorite holiday, and he wastes no time in reminding everyone of it.

“All that lovey-dovey family _crap_. Who needs it? I mean, why do you even need an excuse to watch football and stuff yourself so full of weird food that you can’t move for days? You know what I call that? ‘The Weekend.’”

“ _You_ have _no_ appreciation for the finer things in life, Anakin,” Bail sniffs from where he’s sitting over his meticulously-planned schedule of Brooklyn Thanksgiving dinner taste-testing. He’s apparently up to twenty-three separate restaurant reservations, and hearing about it _again_ is making Anakin crazy. “Even if you can’t celebrate the holiday as you should, surely you can think of something you’re thankful for.”

“This bag of Cheese-Its is up there,” Anakin says lazily, tossing his empty crisp packet in the vague direction of his trashcan. “Good enough for you?”

“No,” Bail says, sighing melodramatically. “I meant – ”

“I know what you meant and I still don’t ca-are,” Anakin sing-songs. “God, you’re as bad as Obi-Wan.”

Said Detective Kenobi has been pacing back and forth between his and Anakin’s desk all morning, furiously flipping between pages of neatly handwritten notes. “I’ve timed it to twenty-two minutes. Is that acceptable, do you think?”

“A _twenty-two minute_ toast? Just how desperate are you to get Windu’s attention, dude?”

“Completely desperate,” Kenobi says casually, turning another page. “He’s accepted the invitation, and I intend to make the most of it. And you’d better wear a suit, Anakin.”

“Were you like this in middle school?” Anakin says snidely, sending his worst sneer at Obi-Wan’s back. “Just how many apples did you bring in for Teacher? – no, please, don’t answer that,” he adds hurriedly as Obi-Wan turns back with an expression of ‘You know what, that’s a question with an interesting answer’ look all over his face. “I really, really don’t want to know.”

By the time four o’clock’s rolled around Obi-Wan has been gone for hours (Anakin is already trying to plan an exit strategy for the dinner itself because while Kenobi might be a wizard with tea leaves Anakin’s pretty sure he subsists on a diet of take-out and charred ready meals otherwise) and Padme is having to cajole Anakin out from behind his desk with the quietly, angrily whispered promise that yes, of course they can have special Holiday Sex afterwards if they can still walk and aren’t hospitalized. It’s a testament to just how much he hates this, Anakin realizes sourly, that that still doesn’t seem like enough of a sweetener to make it worth it.

“What is your _problem_?” Padme hisses finally, throwing herself down into a chair next to him when they’re already fifteen minutes late. “I put on a _blazer_ for this, Skywalker. I’ll never be able to live down the shame. You can damn well suffer with the rest of us.”

“My _problem?_ You didn’t get mad at Obi-Wan for hating Halloween.”

“That’s because he wasn’t an asshole about it,” Padme huffs. “Well, okay, he was, but he apologized, and he didn’t inconvenience _me_. See the difference?”

“I have no intention of spending my evening stuffing Obi-Wan’s cooking down the toilet so I don’t have to eat it and singing Kumbayah,” Anakin grouses, determinedly typing away at his latest (color-coded, tabulated) report for Windu. “I mean, it’s just – I do just fine without being forced to talk about what I’m thankful for, y’know? It only makes you remember what you miss.”

And agh, fuck, now he’s put his foot firmly into his mouth and given it a good shove, because Padme’s looking at him silently and keenly, eyes narrowed at the corners.

“Is this about your mom?” she asks, quietly.

“My mom who always had to work Thanksgiving and my dad who was never around, so I spent every year around this time sitting on our couch in the dark watching fucking football? Yeah,” Anakin mutters, angrier than he’s felt for a long time. “I guess you could say it’s about that.”

He stays staring ahead at his computer screen even when Padme gets up and stands behind him. “I’m gonna do a thing now,” she says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna hug you in public.”

Anakin takes a brief glance around the office, feeling a slow grin growing. “There’s no one here, so technically we’re not in public – ”

“Shut up.”

“Oh-kay.”

Padme smells like citrus, cleaner and brighter than you’d expect, Anakin thinks idly when she wraps him up. From looking at her, you'd actually expect the general scent of blood and death instead. It’s – nice, really nice.

“C’mon,” she says finally, standing back up straight and tapping him hard on the shoulder. “Get into your suit. We may barf it back up, but I know Obi-Wan’s worked hard on this. We’re your family now.”

“Some family,” Anakin sniggers as he gets up and allows her to manhandle him into wearing a tie, at least. “One deranged auntie, one hippy uncle, one disciplinarian dad, one biker chick daughter, two tight-ass dorky sons, twins straight out of some horror-film nightmare, and baby me. Who would’ve thought?”

“Yeah, well,” Padme says, throwing him her extra motorcycle helmet as they trundle outside, “it’s what we’ve got. And trust me, I prefer this over my own family.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah,” she shudders, revving her bike. “My _sisters_ all dress alike, they dress all their _daughters_ alike, it’s like living in a freakin’ cookie cutter factory…”

By the time they get to Kenobi’s place (which is full of a suspicious number of alphabetized books, half-empty boxes of Twinings tea, and patterned waistcoats – which, actually, send Anakin’s mind in all sorts of interesting directions), Obi-Wan is halfway through his toast and his audience is not amused. Well, Bail is, but he would be, because (according to Cody and Rex’s detailed report) he’s been sighing in Obi-Wan’s direction all evening; Windu appears to be listening politely, but with his watch-face clearly within his view around his folded arms, and Qui-Gon is about to go nuclear.

Yoda and Padme think it’s all the most hilarious thing ever. And by the time it’s midnight and they’re all sitting in little heaps on Obi-Wan’s carpet once Bail has finally rescued everything with a perfect smorgasburg of take-out replacements for Kenobi’s inedible turkey, Anakin is almost willing to agree.

*

**TBC**

*


	7. Episode 7

*

Two days before the start of the smattering of overlapping days off that they all plan on taking vaguely off at the end of the year, Anakin comes into the office to find Cody and Rex methodically chewing towards each other along an enormously long chain of popcorn. The fact that they also seem to be very cheerfully eating the string itself is, knowing them, barely even disturbing.

“Uh. Guys? What happens when you get to the middle?”

“That’s when the fun starts,” Rex grins. He looks a little crazed, like he’s put several packets of Splenda into his coffee instead of plain sugar.

“Okay, you know what? I don’t even want to know.”

“Twins get set the _weirdest_ dares,” Cody says mournfully.

It’s a very weird time of year, overall. Around lunchtime, Bail and Obi-Wan come in from a call-out shepherding along two disheveled Santas who had been found beating each other up on a street corner (the funny part is actually how embarrassed Organa and Kenobi look, like they’ve singlehandedly destroyed peace on earth by taking not just one, but two Mr. Clauses into police custody); in the mid-afternoon, Anakin overhears Padme talking Bail firmly through a conversation which is meant to persuade him that no, Obi-Wan doesn’t have a Thing for him and that he should give up, but somehow ends with the general assumption that Bail still has a chance and that all he needs to do is keep telling Obi-Wan of his devotion (which he does – frequently, loudly, and to the general annoyance of everyone in his vicinity).

Near closing time, when Anakin is just about ready to knock off and go back to being bored at home (Padme’s due to spend some tortuous time with family before they can spend the rest of their break ignoring everything and everyone together), he’s called into Windu’s office, and can only hope that it’s for an assignment that will remind him why the hell he’s working with these lunatics in the first place.

“Have a seat, Skywalker,” Windu intones, gesturing briefly to the dress-uniformed cop waiting in a chair opposite his desk. “You know Commissioner Billaba.”

“Indeed I do. To what do we owe the pleasure, Commissioner?” Anakin is inches away from a yawn, and Windu knows it – his frown looks like it’s been carved out of concrete.

“We’ve received death threats against Captain Windu,” Billaba says, sharp and precise. “Protocol for these situations is, of course, for an officer to be detailed to protect the police officer in question. Captain Windu has requested you, Detective Skywalker.”

“Wow,” Anakin says, blinking. “I don’t know whether to be horrified or ecstatic.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing, please go on,” Anakin says, shaking his head, grinning maniacally at Windu, who now very clearly wants to die. It’s the most obvious expression Anakin has ever seen on his face. “What will my protection consist of?”

“You will not let him out of your sight, and you will have discretion over his movements.”

“A _ma_ zing – ly sensible, yes,” Anakin crows. He’s seconds away from bouncing out of his seat. “Well, sir,” he adds, enjoying _so much_ the thunderclouds building on Windu’s brow, “I guess we’re going to be spending the holidays together.”

Trailing Windu everywhere around the precinct (except into the bathroom, because even Anakin isn’t that stupid) is hilarious. Clambering into the driver’s seat of his car and tricking him into a safehouse is even better.

The handcuffs, however, are the icing on the cake.

“What on _earth_ are you doing, Skywalker?” Windu growls, staring in disbelief at the wrist which is now attached to Anakin’s by a very short length of very indestructible chain. “I chose you for this assignment with the express expectation that you would do it _badly_ and let me off this ridiculous hook.”

“Can’t have you slipping away, sir,” Anakin blusters, shoving them both down to sit on one of the sterile couches and lunging for the TV’s remote control before Windu can get to it first. “It’s all for your own safety. Whoa, whoa,” he adds, flapping ineffectually at the phone clasped tight in Windu’s fist. “Who are you calling?”

“My husband?” Windu says slowly, his tone and eyes promising death. “To let him know that I won’t make it home for our meticulously-planned Christmas Eve celebrations tonight?”

“A-ha. Yeah, you’re fine. Go ahead.”

There’s a knock on the door around eight; it’s a bit more of a fuss than Anakin would have anticipated to get them both over to it when they’re so closely shackled, but they manage it, and it’s also worth it for the look in Obi-Wan's eyes when the door flies open fast enough that Anakin can get his gun right in Kenobi’s face.

“Jesus!” Obi-Wan barks, flinging himself backwards into the corridor. “What happened to ‘goodwill towards men’?”

“What the hell are _you_ doing here?”

“Brought the laptop you asked for, you ass,” Obi-Wan says archly, skittering his way into the apartment with the computer under his arm. “You know, the one you’re going to use to actually figure out who’s sending these threats?”

“Dear God,” Windu moans.

Anakin’s revenge is to handcuff Obi-Wan to his _other_ wrist, which provokes a hell of a lot of unnecessary shouting and swearing. He never would have thought that Windu even _knew_ those words, or that Obi-Wan could turn red that fast.

It takes nearly two hours for them to settle into a vaguely-comfortable position on the couch, arrange enough slack in the cuffs so that Windu can work on the laptop while Obi-Wan and Anakin play Wii Tennis on either side of him, and, finally, come up with a sheet of possible suspects.

“Hmm,” Windu says thoughtfully, and points at the screen; ten seconds later, after they’ve nearly torn a tendon each, Skywalker and Kenobi are able to peer over his shoulders at what he’s seeing. “Uda Khalid. I put him in jail in 1982 after he murdered an entire relay swim team which he claimed was a first step towards world domination – it seems he escaped from Rikers just a few days ago.”

If Obi-Wan’s brow gets any more furrowed, he’ll be swallowing it. “The swim team was the key to world domination?”

“Yes. It was odd at the time, too.”

“I’m convinced,” Anakin says brightly, hauling his cellphone out of his pocket with the one working hand he’s got left. “Last sighting listed here places him near the Brooklyn Bridge – how much you wanna bet that we’ll find him in one of those old warehouses around the Armory?”

The dual glares he gets in return tell him that he’s not going to get good odds. “Fine,” he grouses, speed-dialing Padme. “Be the spoilsports you were born to be…”

By the time they’re finally disentangled from each other and have hared their way to Bushwick, the rest of the crew have already pinpointed Khalid’s location and suited up – and to Anakin’s great surprise (and not a little bit of delight), Qui-Gon is there too, frowning mightily as Padme forces him into his bulletproof vest. 

“Boss! Are you fuckin’ back?”

“Against my will,” Qui-Gon complains, swatting ineffectually at Padme, who is far too nimble for him, as he gets his head through the vest and ties back his hair. “The psychologist ruled that I was fit for duty.”

“All _right_ ,” Anakin whoops, rushing through his own prep. “I am _so_ down for this!”

The warehouse seems quiet enough – until it isn’t, of course, because Uda Khalid has clearly managed to take advantage of some gun-show loopholes since escaping from Rikers, and has Windu in his sights. But when the bullets start to rain down on them from the gantry up in the rafters of the warehouse, and Anakin hears a shocked yelp, it’s Obi-Wan and Bail who are in a tangle on the floor, and suddenly none of it is funny.

“Fuck!” Obi-Wan is saying, patting frantically at Bail’s back as he wriggles out from under him. “Bail? Oh _shit_ – ”

There’s blood on Bail’s hip at the lower edge of his vest as Obi-Wan and Anakin drag him off to the side, and (thank god) it also doesn’t look serious, but it’s enough – Qui-Gon comes blazing out of the darkness like some avenging angel, and Khalid doesn’t know what hits him. Well, he knows he gets steamrolled by three hundred pounds and six and a half feet of pure muscle, but when they put him in the squad car afterwards he’s beyond being able to know anything much.

“Really am glad you’re back, boss,” Anakin says, when they’re clustered around Bail in the ambulance and he’s blithely chattering away about how nice morphine feels, and still hasn’t let go of Obi-Wan’s hand.

“Yes,” Qui-Gon says, steely-eyed as he looks over his ragged troop. “You know, I think I am too, now.”

*

**TBC**

*


	8. Episode 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I don't even know...

*

“Ow,” Obi-Wan moans; his attempt to raise his head gets him not much more than a clonk across the back of it from a modified police baton, which has to hurt. “Okay, revise that: _fucking_ ow.”

“Shut up,” their captor drawls, as Obi-Wan shakes and grimaces his way back to coherency. Qui-Gon’s been at that point for some time already, and is rapidly progressing on to ‘completely fucking bored,’ but what with being restrained with about five pairs of handcuffs and needing to make sure his erstwhile junior detective isn’t dead, he hasn’t been able to do anything much about it.

Obi-Wan frowns mightily over at Qui-Gon over in the half-light, clearly unable to get a good look at their host when his glasses are in pieces around his feet (it had been a non-contacts day, which Qui-Gon had always quite enjoyed, but now it was turning out to be a distinct disadvantage). “Sarge? Is there a particular reason why we’re trussed up in the back of a – what the fuck is this, a VW campervan?”

“ _This_ happens to be a 1974 RHD Aussie, Kenobi,” Maul grumbles, finally ambling back into view. He’s lean and mean as ever, and appears to have picked up a few new interesting, patterned scars, but Qui-Gon can’t say it’s improved his looks much. “Quit bleeding on the seats, I just re-upholstered.”

Obi-Wan squints at Qui-Gon, who just shrugs, and then back at Maul. “You fell off the Brooklyn Bridge,” he says, wonderingly. “How many lives do you have, exactly?”

“Ah-ah,” Maul menaces, pointing the baton back in Obi-Wan’s face. “Did you forget the part where you pushed me, detective?”

“ _You’re_ forgetting the part where you had shot my superior officer and had me by my coattails,” Obi-Wan sniffs. “It’s not my fault you have terrible balance.”

“Would you two mind being quiet for just a moment?” Qui-Gon sighs. “If I have to listen to _your_ complaining or _your_ monologing one more time I think I’ll just give up and die.”

“He started it!”

“ _He_ started it!”

“So _help_ me,” Qui-Gon growls, flexing as far as he dares, and, thankfully, it works, though neither of his audience seem particularly happy about it.

Silence reigns for about ten seconds before one of them has to open his big mouth again. “So, what are we waiting for, exactly?” Obi-Wan asks, crossing one leg over the other and settling a little more comfortably in his own rickety chair, looking disdainfully down at the tape securing his wrists to the back of it. “You have some more inventive torture in mind, Maul? I’ve so missed our little chats.”

“Nah,” Maul says; the perp is lounging across one of his precious low leather seats, idly cleaning a luger and looking periodically out of one of the lace-curtained (wrong, wrong, the aesthetics are so _very_ wrong) windows. “I’m only looking for ransom money this time. Messing you up got boring.”

“So very kind,” Obi-Wan says, rolling his eyes. Then it’s finally (well, _finally_ ) time for him to quickly look Qui-Gon over, frowning slightly. “Are you alright?”

“Yes.”

“Because you don’t look very alright – ”

“I’m _fine_ , Obi-Wan.”

“Quit ragging on him, Kenobi,” Maul giggles. “You still sweet on him or something? Your googly eyes were always the best part of our little duels back in the day.”

“None of your business,” Obi-Wan huffs, uncrossing and re-crossing his legs.

“Aww,” Maul coos, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “Did I hit a nerve?”

“Ask _him_ ,” Obi-Wan mutters.

“The plot thickens,” Maul smirks. “Anything to say for yourself, Jinn?”

Qui-Gon glares sideways at Obi-Wan. “I would remind you, Detective, that this is hardly the time or place for this sort of discussion.”

“Yes, well, neither is any other time, apparently,” Obi-Wan shoot back, and damn it, he must have a concussion to be this visibly angry. “Frankly, I can’t think of a better time than when we’re being held hostage by a homicidal psychopath to discuss our past relationship difficulties.”

Qui-Gon looks at Maul, who looks like Christmas really has come in July, and sighs. “It’s exactly that sort of worrying which was so suffocating, Obi-Wan,” he begins. “If your reaction hadn’t been so extreme after The Incident – ”

“Xanatos shot you,” Obi-Wan interrupts, Maul completely forgotten as he raises one eyebrow very firmly at Qui-Gon, wincing with the effort. “Was I supposed to be _calm_?”

“Well you didn’t particularly need to be _hysterical_.” 

“I was not hysterical!” Obi-Wan looks like he’s a bit hysterical now, actually, though it probably has more to do with the fact that he’s clearly realized that Maul’s haphazard kidnapping techniques have completely ruined his favorite shirt than with their situation as a whole. “And my concern was no reason to turn me out on my ear.”

“After a one-night stand there was very little turning out to be done,” Qui-Gon grumbles. “Don’t you think that _that_ should be considered more carefully in your evaluation of our quote-unquote ‘relationship’?”

“This is amazing,” Maul moans.

“And anyway,” Qui-Gon says, louder, attempting to regain control over the careening car-crash that is apparently their entire day, “I was rather under the impression that that sort of ‘relationship’ was your style, Obi-Wan.”

“I _beg_ your pardon,” Obi-Wan sniffs.

Qui-Gon blinks. “Haven’t you won the ‘office bicycle’ competition for three years running, or something?”

Obi-Wan stares. It’s actually pretty fucking hilarious. “The _what_ competition?”

“Oh,” Qui-Gon says. “Never mind.”

“No, do go on,” Maul says, leaning forward, gesturing slinkily with the barrel of his gun.

Qui-Gon sneaks a glance at Obi-Wan, who looks red enough that his hair might catch on fire at any moment. “So you didn’t know that Yoda’s been running a pool on how long it would take for you to finally get around to her?”

“Oh _god_ ,” Obi-Wan blurts, sounding sick.

“Okay, let’s run down the list,” Maul grins. “The idiot twins?”

“Hey, they approached me,” Obi-Wan growls.

Now it’s Qui-Gon’s turn to stare. “At the same time?”

“Fuck _off_ , Qui,” is his only answer.

“How about your new Captain? Did you get the stick out of his ass?”

“I wish,” Obi-Wan sighs, and promptly goes redder.

“Already boned your other boss, I hear,” Maul says casually, with a nod in Qui-Gon’s direction as he counts off on his fingers. “How about that cute cop at the front desk? The one who was always booking me in?”

“Oh, definitely,” Qui-Gon nods. “I caught them in the break room once.”

“I’m almost impressed, Kenobi,” Maul snickers. “Now for the big one. Skywalker and his girlfriend?”

“I’m invoking my Miranda rights,” Obi-Wan grouses, glaring at each of them in turn. “This is fucking ridiculous.”

“Hey, you _are_ the one who started this one, Kenobi,” Maul says; it’s always been incredible, Qui-Gon thinks, how the maniac’s yellow-tinged eyes can turn so completely evil so quickly. He’s seen it far too many times, and it’s usually heralded imminent violence – as, it seems, it will now, because he’s creeping towards Obi-Wan with his hands flexing as though longing to put them, once again, around Kenobi’s neck. “And we’ve got a little longer before your pals in the cavalry arrive, so I suggest you keep talking.”

It doesn’t take Qui-Gon long to decide what to do; he does, after all, have a duty of care to his squad, and even below the technical fact of his job he knows that he probably did love Obi-Wan, once, and that he does now, too, differently, and that it’s actually a damn shame that something shitty and destroying happened to happen to the fragile thing that was, briefly, Them.

Which is when he discovers, to his intense satisfaction, that the chair he’s been sitting on – which is apparently of a similar vintage to the VW bus as a whole – is no match for the muscle strength of Qui-Gon Jinn, formerly known to the denizens of the 99th Precinct as the Auburn Falcon, and that it’s child’s play, in the end, to rip the arms off the damn thing and barrel forward until all three of them, splintered wood and handcuffs flying and curses being shouted at the tops of their lungs, slam into the half-open doors of the bus and land in a tangled heap, and with a fair number of sickening-sounding cracks, on the asphalt of the deserted parking lot beyond.

Maul is unconscious; one of the other cracks, though, seems to have come from Obi-Wan, who is looking dazedly up at the sky. “Nice one, Sarge,” he croaks, woozily. “I think my head’s broken.”

“It always has been,” Qui-Gon smiles, and goes busily to work on Obi-Wan’s duct tape with one hand while patting down Maul for a phone with the other.

“Sarge?”

“Yes?”

“Miranda rights, yeah?”

“Sure,” Qui-Gon says, putting a palm gently on Obi-Wan’s forehead. “Not a word, young one.”

“Office _bicycle_ ,” Obi-Wan mutters. “For pete’s sake.”

“Well you don’t need to sound _quite_ so proud of yourself.”

“Oh god, _please_ shut up…”

*

**TBC**

*


	9. Episode 9

*

Life at the office has been a living hell since Bail and Obi-Wan – well, ‘broke up’ can’t be the right way to put it, because they were never actually _together_ per se as far as Anakin knows beyond a quickly-abandoned attempt at a pity-fuck which clearly caused massive issues for all parties involved. At any rate, Bail’s hardly spoken in days, which is fucking weird and, frankly, disturbing, and Obi-Wan’s picked up so much fieldwork to keep away from him that Anakin wouldn’t be surprised if he handed in a transfer any minute.

It shouldn’t be funny. It really shouldn’t. But Anakin’s an asshole, and he knows it, so, of course, it is.

“I mean _really_ , I can’t even imagine how that sex would even _go –_ ”

“Shut up, Anakin.”

“Is it theoretically possible to overdose on vanilla or – ”

“Stab you with my knitting needles, I will,” Yoda intones, which does the trick for about ten minutes before Anakin’s over-active imagination sets him off again. Padme hitting him up the back of the head with her police-issue truncheon keeps him quiet for rather longer, but that’s mostly because he starts complaining about concussion instead.

“You’re only making it worse,” Qui-Gon admonishes (he’s started to develop a tic every time Anakin speaks, which is hilarious and so, so exploitable). “Obi-Wan actually _would_ transfer out over this, you know he would, and then we’d be nowhere. And Bail’s a good detective. They could both use your support.”

Anakin’s response to _that_ , which is along the lines of saying that he knows full well that any further involvement on his part would probably end with both of his colleagues transferring to Siberia to get away from him, is interrupted by a mass email dinging into his inbox which rapidly has the entire office tittering.

“Windu is having a birthday party?” Padme says, her face scrunched up with distaste. “Tonight?”

“Oh, thank god,” says a familiar, pathetically-relieved voice, which turns out to be Obi-Wan, settling behind his desk and eagerly perusing the details. “A project. This is amazing.”

“What is?”

“Wake up, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, rolling his eyes. “There will be _so_ much trespassing to do. I will leave no nook or cranny of his home uninvestigated.”

“You’re weird,” Padme says flatly, and Obi-Wan beams.

Four hours later, as they’re all clustered in a shivering circle outside Windu’s handsomely-appointed brownstone in their finest winter puffery, Qui-Gon is concerned enough about their incipient behavior that he feels the need to lay out a whole list of rules that Anakin promptly forgets.

“Gifts?”

“Got it,” Anakin says, triumphantly producing a bottle of Three-Buck Chuck from his jacket – his face falls only when everyone else produces variants of the exact same thing from _their_ coats, because apparently they are all broke and three dollars is the most they can ever spend on alcohol. “Okay, but at least we’ve got a range of grapes represented?”

“Seriously,” Qui-Gon says, already rubbing at what looks like a fierce headache starting up at his temples. “You will all be _polite_. You will all be _civil_ to Captain Windu’s guests, to his husband, and to each other,” he continues, leveling a glare at Obi-Wan and Bail, who are standing as far away from each other as possible while still huddled in close enough to take advantage of group body heat. “Oh, and I have been informed that the one rule of the house is that there will be no shop talk.”

“What!” Anakin yelps. “That’s all I had prepared! I was going to impress Windu’s hubby with dramatic stories about that serial disemboweler I caught last year!”

“I’ll listen to that,” Rex offers helpfully.

“Fucking _no_ ,” everyone else says, near-simultaneously. It’s starting to get really annoying when they do that.

“Motto of the evening,” Qui-Gon says, attempting to regain control – “‘Be appropriate.’ On three.”

There’s a fair amount of grumbling, but eventually everyone has their free hands in, and _Be appropriate_ drifts up into the frosty air. It’s hardly a battle cry, but when the door opens and they all shuffle in to meet their boss’s friends and family it rapidly comes in handy.

“Oh my god,” Anakin whispers delightedly to Padme, eyes wide. “The husband is a Colonel Sanders lookalike.”

She kicks him in the ankle, quickly and viciously, which diminishes his grin just enough that when he’s finally introduced to Mr. Mundi (“Call me Ki-Adi,” he says, looking with suspicious bemusement down at them all, but Anakin’s already way down the road of wondering what on earth their combined married name must be – Windu-Mundi? Mundi-Windu? either one is a trainwreck) his smile is Appropriately Big rather than just crazed.

Five minutes in, Anakin is already running away from said Ki-Adi because he’d attempted to get out of his dearth of cop stories by substituting an imaginary obsession with _The New Yorker_ (Note to self: never try to be Actually Intelligent in conversation with a Classics Professor); out of the corner of his eye, he just about catches the flash of Obi-Wan’s coattails as he scurries up the roped-off flight of stairs to the second floor; Cody appears to be educating several eager onlookers on the finer points of crochet patterning; and Yoda has gathered a flock of psychiatrists and psychology academics who are all furiously taking notes of her pronouncements and recommending medications from Ambien to Zoloft, all watched over by Padme, who is sniggering so hard into her drink that she’s probably gotten most of it up her nose.

Actually, what might be most surprising is that Bail looks – happy. He’s been deeply in conversation since they first stepped in with an attractive, energetic-looking woman in a corner about aiolis and the relative merits of charbroiling and grilling, and by the look in his eyes Obi-Wan is rapidly (and thankfully) becoming a thought very much of the past. Half an hour after _that_ the two of them have apparently disappeared into a nearby coat closet, and Anakin, spotting Ki-Adi’s tall, slightly-stooped frame suddenly in the same room as him, decides that retreat is the better part of valor and also nips up the stairs, seeking every copy of _The New Yorker_ that he can possibly get his hands on.

“Bedside table, bedside table,” he mutters, peeking into various half-lit rooms. “Ah-hah – wait, what the fuck?”

“Recon,” Obi-Wan snaps defensively, reddening, as he glares back at Anakin from where he’s been doing his own poking into Windu and Mundi’s drawers. “Is it safe down there?”

“Yeah, you’re off the hook. Bail’s found himself a foodie. I think they’re trying to eat each other.”

“Oh, thank god,” Obi-Wan sighs, and just like that, he seems back to his usual unruffable self, even smiling. “I no longer feel like I drop-kicked a puppy. Let’s go.”

“What the _hell_ are you both doing in here?” Qui-Gon hisses, provoking Anakin into a squawk because _damnit_ , a man of his size should _not_ be able to move that quietly. “I cannot even tell you both how rude you are being! Get your asses downstairs!”

But that’s kind of out of the question, because as they’re all heading for the hallway it becomes clear from the raised voices approaching that Windu and Mundi are coming to _them_ , and so a few seconds of frantic gesticulating later they’re all ensconced in the master bedroom’s ensuite bathroom, which also turns out to be a mistake, because there’s a dog in there – a cute, fluffy, unbelievably small little thing – which means, of course, that Obi-Wan immediately jumps on top of the sink, his hands over his mouth and nose, and starts whispering frantic underbreathed things about allergies.

 _Aw, **shit**_ **,** Anakin thinks.

Obi-Wan sneezes. The door opens, to the (hopefully?) amusing sight of Anakin holding the fluff-ball and an enraged Qui-Gon with a red-faced Obi-Wan in a headlock. But, of course, in the end – Windu is not amused.

Most of the squad is quietly and unceremoniously kicked out; Anakin, however, finding himself the last one out (the psychiatrists are very sad to see Yoda go – Padme is still laughing), turns back with a thought that might just save him.

“Mr. Mundi, sir?”

“Yes?” He’s actually a handsome man for his type, Anakin reflects, especially when he’s looking stern and disapproving – which isn’t difficult, in the light on his front steps and with Anakin all balled up from the cold.

“I just wanted to say sorry. For, you know – being cops.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

“You don’t like cops,” Anakin says simply, shrugging. “I mean, sure, we’re also rude and stupid cops who just massively invaded your privacy, but – I’m a detective, and I couldn’t help notice that the only pictures you have of you and Captain Windu from back in the day, you’re on your own.”

“Yes,” Mundi says, gentler, one eyebrow raised. “The fact of – _us_ was not exactly a welcome one to Mace’s colleagues.”

“Yeah, well,” Anakin mumbles, scuffing a little at a patch of frosted snow. “You don’t have to worry about that part anymore, sir. Not with us, anyway.”

“I see.” Mundi pauses. “Thank you, Detective Skywalker.”

“Oh, and, uh – the rummaging in your stuff? I just want to make it clear that that was Obi-Wan. He claims to now have your secret recipe for hummus all figured out.”

He’s already halfway down the pavement by the time he hears Mundi’s faint reply.

“But – we buy it from Citarella?”

Anakin grins, and hurries up his stride. He’s going to tease Obi-Wan about that one for _weeks_.

*

**TBC**

*


	10. Episode 10

*

“You know the drill, Skywalker. One thousand.”

“Padme, I will _die_. I will expire. I will shuffle off this mortal coil and my spirit will fly off to the fjords.”

“You saying you can’t do it?” Padme’s grin is thoroughly evil. “Aw. I’m disappointed. Not surprised, though.”

“ _Right_ , then,” Anakin says, immediately getting out of his chair. “One thousand. Starts now. _One_ – okay, that really fucking hurts,” he groans, as his madly-shaking arms lower him down into the second push-up. “Two – there goes the hernia – three – oh my god – ”

“Did I miss something, Skywalker, or have you finally solved this murder case you’ve been stuck on for weeks?” Windu doesn’t look amused, nor does he sound it, but underneath Anakin is willing to bet that the sight of his most deadbeat detective busting a gut with his back underneath Padme’s casually-placed boots must, on some level, be pleasing to him.

“Ninety-nine per cent there, sir,” Anakin pants, and at Padme’s conciliatory tut, puts his knees down onto the floor with an _oomph_ of relief. “Just a few final touches.”

“Such as?”

“The judge won’t go to trial until we find the murder weapon?”

Windu’s eyebrows rise a fraction. “Seems like a pretty major component of the case to be missing, Detective. I suggest you take up my recommendation to make use of the wider team, before – ”

The door to the precinct offices opening cuts him off, and as Anakin lurches upright, it’s straight into his worst nightmare. “Aw, _hell_ no – ”

“Good afternoon,” Dooku intones, as dapper and slimy as ever in his three-piece suit. “I understand you have a case for me.”

“Sir,” Anakin says desperately, turning to Windu with clasped hands. “I’m begging you. Don’t let the Vulture take my case!”

“You brought this on yourself, Detective,” Windu says, with a shrug, though Anakin is at least a little gratified to see the hint of annoyance in his brow as Dooku looks imperiously over at Obi-Wan, who glares back with a passion. “Besides, Major Crimes can choose to take any case it pleases. Hand over the files, and then you can get back to – this interesting punishment Detective Amidala appears to be putting you through.”

“It’s just a bet,” Anakin calls at his retreating back. “Leftover from police academy – okay, you’re not listening, fair enough…”

“I thank you most kindly,” Dooku drawls as Anakin, with minimum grace, hands over the box stacked with all of his notes on the murder case in question, which he immediately hands over to an underling who looks about twenty, and also like he already deserves his pension. “Good to see you, Skywalker. And Amidala – as beautiful as ever.”

“I want my drugs bust case back, asshole,” Padme growls, and turns dismissively back to her computer.

“Well,” Dooku smirks. “Keep up the good work.”

“Aaaand here it comes,” Anakin sighs.

The customary pinch on the backside _hurts_ this time – almost as much as losing the case. Across the room, a few seconds later, Obi-Wan leaps out of his chair with a yelp as Dooku passes, and stands fuming in the middle of the bullpen, rubbing at his similarly-abused posterior.

“Damn it, Qui,” the older detective snaps, glaring over at where the Sergeant has been silently glowering from behind his desk. “Could you fucking tell your former boss that just because he thinks he’s god’s gift and-or our creepy grandfather that there is _no_ excuse to infantilize and harass us every time he deigns to grace us with his presence?”

“I have. Repeatedly,” Qui-Gon says, shaking his head. “You just have to stand up to him. He wouldn’t dare with me.”

“Because your biceps are bigger than his head!” Obi-Wan retorts.

“Damn it,” Anakin grouses, kicking sullenly at the side of his desk. “I was so fucking close on that case, too.”

“Should’ve asked for help,” Qui-Gon admonishes. “We were all offering.”

“Yeah, well, it’s over now,” Anakin sighs. “Wait,” he adds, then, as an idea starts to spark in the back of his brain. “Or maybe not…”

“I’m in,” Obi-Wan says instantly. “I don’t even care what it is as long as we show him up.”

“We’re gonna out-Vulture him,” Anakin says, slowly grinning. “We’re gonna solve the case.”

A quick trip to the murder scene (that starts with a visit to a local bar because they all, in the end, need some liquid courage to actually go through with breaking the rules they’re planning on breaking, especially Obi-Wan) follows, and Anakin soon finds himself standing in the kitchen where the dastardly deed apparently took place, setting the scene for his eager audience of Padme, Obi-Wan, Bail, and the twins, who have apparently tagged along just for the sightseeing.

“Okay. We assume that the wife killed her husband, who was found lying dead right here; from the puncture wounds created by the weapon, we think – okay, so Padme figured out – that it was a corkscrew. We haven’t found it. Let’s brainstorm.”

“Trash?” Obi-Wan suggests.

“Searched several times over, both in the apartment and in the garbage chute.”

“She threw it out the window. Fell onto a car or bus,” Padme says.

“CCTV shows no cars or buses passing for twenty minutes either side of the purported time of the murder. It’s a quiet street.”

Bail, meanwhile, has been examining the fancy metallic fridge, and turns to them with a look of big-eyed excitement. “What if it was magnetic? There are so many fine options on the market today – stainless steel from Switzerland, probably – anyway,” he continues hurriedly at the several looks promising murder he receives at his pattering, “what if it’s stuck _halfway down_ the garbage chute?”

The chute is out in the floor’s main hallway, and ridiculously small. “Okay, Padme,” Anakin says excitedly as he shines his flashlight down the chute and sees nothing. “You’re the smallest – ”

“Touch me and you die.”

“Point,” Anakin amends hurriedly. “Obi-Wan, get yourself and your slender shoulders over here.”

“You’ve _got_ to be kidding,” Obi-Wan grouches, but he’s already halfway through his routine of sighing, taking off his jacket, and giving in. Dangling him down the chute, with Anakin and Bail each on a leg, is quite an incredible amount of fun – as is the screech he makes when, inevitably, they manage to drop him. It’s worth it, though, for finding him sitting in the basement dumpster a few minutes later, grinning from ear to ear, with the bloody corkscrew in his gloved hands.

But that is also, unfortunately, when the building security finally catch up to them, and by the time they’re back at the station and done getting chewed out by Windu, and morosely watching _Windu_ getting chewed out by _Dooku_ , their pre-game drinks suddenly seem like a very bad idea.

“Hey, look on the bright side,” Obi-Wan says to Anakin as they sit and watch the distant shouting match. “You _did_ out-vulture the Vulture. And you solved the case.”

“Yeah,” Anakin sighs, giving Obi-Wan the most grateful smile he can muster. “And I’ve landed you all in shit. That’s not okay.”

“Sure it is,” Obi-Wan shrugs as he turns back to his desk. “You’d do the same for us.”

Anakin looks after him for a moment, smiling, and then, taking a deep breath, gets up and makes his way determinedly into Windu’s office without knocking.

“Skywalker,” Dooku growls. “Come to get your behind royally kicked?”

“If you insist,” Anakin says, as politely as he dares. “Sir, I just came in to apologize. And to present Detective Dooku with the murder weapon – which he found, on his last sweep of the scene. He realized, because he’s a brilliant detective, that it was magnetic, and stuck to the inside of the garbage chute. Congratulations,” he finishes, just about remembering not to spit as he puts the bagged murder weapon into an astonished Dooku’s hands. “Looks like we’re done.”

“Well, Detective,” Windu says instantly to Dooku. “ _Are_ we… done?”

Dooku looks suspiciously at each of them in turn. “Of course,” he finally says, oily as ever. “Until next time, Skywalker.”

“Here we go,” Anakin sighs. “Ow, fucking _ow_ , you demented old bastard!”

“Well,” Windu says, as Anakin furiously rubs at his hip to dispel the sting. “I’m impressed, Skywalker. But that sacrifice of yours doesn’t get the team off the hook.”

“Sure it does, sir. Because I was the only one there.”

For what might be the very first time, Windu actually _smiles_ at him. It’s such a shocking sight that it stops Anakin dead. “Is that so?”

“Uh – yes.”

“Fine. We’ll discuss the terms of your reprimand at a later date,” Windu nods. “Dismissed.”

“You did good today,” Padme says as Anakin comes back out and sits at their dual desk. “But you still owe me nine hundred and ninety-seven pushups.”

“Can I take a pass on that? I have plans to make a cast of my ass. I’ll send it to Dooku so he can do whatever the fuck he wants to it without needing the real thing around.”

“Can I watch?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then sure,” she grins.

“Hey, Obi-Wan!” Anakin calls across the room. “Get your tush over here. We’ll make a matching set.”

“In your dreams, Skywalker,” Obi-Wan scoffs, turning back to his (clearly much-needed) coffee.

“I’ll see it someday. That’s a promise.”

“Like I said,” Obi-Wan laughs – “in your damn dreams.”

 _Oh yes,_ Anakin thinks, as, with a quietly-giggling Padme, he heads down to the precinct’s storage room. _I’m a few steps ahead of you on that one, Kenobi…_

*

**TBC**

*


	11. Episode 11

*

It takes approximately three days after Captain Windu’s party for Organa to go full Bail-Out. Only Obi-Wan sees it coming, which is a surprise given how obvious it all is: if the constant phone calls weren’t proof enough, the sight of Bail doing his own version of ‘Single Ladies’ while making coffee every two hours should have provoked everyone in the station to down tools and figure it out. But it’s a busy week, and so Bail is already at the stage of sizing wedding rings by the time Kenobi manages to drag Anakin and Padme in on the action.

“It’s happening,” Obi-Wan sighs, clutching at his mug of tea like he needs it to deal with a hangover. “Full Bail-Out. It’s really bad.”

“Remind me why you call it that, again?” Padme says, squinting suspiciously at the patterns of Post-Its on Bail’s desk which all contain some doodly heart-laden version of ‘Mr. Bail Antilles.’ “I think it’s pretty clear that Bail isn’t going to bail out on her at this point.”

“Oh, nah,” Anakin sniggers. “We call it that because the women bail out. _Fast_.”

“He’s going to be devastated,” Obi-Wan says sadly. “I had high hopes for this one.”

“And then he’ll go back to you, which is what you’re really worried about, isn’t it?”

“No,” Obi-Wan mutters, blushing to the tips of his ears. “I mean I _like_ him and all, but driving each other nuts at work is bad enough without bringing it home…”

“Yeah, and none of us would be able to handle it either,” Padme says, deadly serious. “Okay. What do we do?”

“Keep him calm, mostly. I think if we can coax him through a month or so then he can be allowed his particular brand of Crazy.”

Anakin stares. “A _month?_ It’s been three days.”

“Yeah,” Obi-Wan moans, and shuffles off like a nursery teacher who has to deal with screaming toddlers on approximately two hours of sleep.

Three days after _that_ , Anakin finds himself, surreally, in a tasting session for wedding cake, because apparently accepting a proposal from a madman who’s only known you for ninety-six hours is _de rigeur_ for newly-tenured professors of food and domestic science history. Breha is lovely – fairly gorgeous in all respects, as it turns out – and what convinced her to say yes to Bail Anakin will not figure out for the _life_ of him, but it’s actually… kind of nice, to see him so happy, and Obi-Wan’s face goes the most interesting color when Bail asks him to be his best man that it can’t help but make Anakin laugh.

“Oh, she’s just as crazy,” Obi-Wan confides in him at some point, in between nibbling at a truly horrendous artisanal wad of pastry which has a name too long and complicated for Anakin to even attempt to pronounce. “I mean, she’s also wonderful, but you know that name-calling thing he does?”

“Uh-huh. Please don’t provide examples, I was scarred enough by him calling you Chucklebuns.”

“And the grand romantic gestures? You know, the Statue of Liberty thing – ”

“ _Yes_ , oh god, shut up before I die of second-hand embarrassment – ”

“She _likes_ them.”

Anakin takes a bite which turns out to have an unfortunate (but probably deliberate) crunch in it, one hard enough to make him worry he’s broken a tooth, and takes a moment to hurriedly spit it out before continuing. “Shit, _really?_ ”

“They’ve already bought a dog.”

“Fuck off.”

“They’ve named it Pookums.”

“ _Fuck._ ” Anakin wants to run, suddenly, but it’s all he can really do to laugh. “You’re fucking loving this, aren’t you?”

“I’m happy to help,” Obi-Wan shrugs, taking a delicate forkful of the next offering and sniffing it carefully. “Who am I to stand in the way of ill-advised, hasty love?”

“Ah, true. Based on office gossip, you’re the expert.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Obi-Wan sniffs haughtily, and promptly starts choking; his near-death, averted by Anakin’s expert Heimlich maneuver, is thankfully what convinces Bail that he could just go for a fancy-shmancy brick of chocolate, for fuck’s sake, and that despite their mutual interests there is really no reason for he and Breha to poison their wedding guests with the first course of their reception.

Padme just about deigns to be Anakin’s guest for the ceremony, which he’ll put down as an epic win. She certainly looks epic in one of her infrequently-worn dresses, all layers of silk and delicately-lined makeup, and how she gets her hair into that particular shape Anakin will _never_ know. It certainly looks too delicate to touch without the entire arrangement toppling over, so he just about manages to promise to keep his hands to himself until the reception’s over and they can take advantage of the typical post-wedding routine apparently expected of all guests ever.

The ceremony itself is beautiful, a fairly insane testament to the power of the organizational mind to get about a million details in hand – the only odd thing about it (which Anakin notices straightaway because Detective, thank you) is that Obi-Wan, standing in the traditional best man’s place and noticeably tired from spending hours on flower-arranging, looks… stunned, somehow. And his hair’s out of place, sort of mussed to one side, and then as Breha steps up to the altar she’s looking _smug_ under her veil, and so is Bail, come to think of it, and…

“Oh my god,” Anakin says, out loud, and fortunately is just about able to turn it into a coughing fit, with the help of the elbow Padme throws sideways into his ribs.

“Shut up,” she whispers, looking steadily, and with a vague shimmer in her eyes that Anakin will absolutely tease her about later, at the happy couple.

“But – but – ”

“ _What?_ ”

“I think I just learned something new about Obi-Wan that you might be interested in.”

“Oh?” she murmurs back, her eyebrows quirking upward. Her eyes flicker sideways, and then go wide, because She Is Also A Detective, Thank You. “ _Oh_.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How interesting,” she says flatly, and then stands on Anakin’s foot and goes back to her attentive watching – with the slightest of smiles.

They’ll give Obi-Wan a break, Anakin thinks, when he’s had a lot to drink and the reception shows no signs of stopping and it turns out that Windu and his husband are surprisingly good at 1920s jazz dance and that Yoda can, in fact, eat her way through two quarts of sea salt & caramel ice cream in half an hour. Not much of one, though.

It isn’t every day you discover your unexpectedly attractive friend and colleague is up for being a third, after all…

*

**TBC**

*


	12. Episode 12

*

“Okay.” Anakin hasn't felt this nervous since coming second in deductive reasoning at the police academy. Thankfully that blow to his ego had been softened by the fact that he'd lost to Padme, but this scenario doesn't really have any such redemptive features. “Go over it with me again.”

Qui-Gon's craggy face, looming far (far) above him, creases into a frown. “I have it, Anakin. I hardly need you to be here to babysit me.”

“C'mooon, man,” Anakin says, punching Qui-Gon jovially in the bicep, which turns out to hurt quite a lot. Jesus, is the man ingesting rocks when they're all not looking? “Protocol dictates an officer should never be left unsupervised when undercover if we can help it. Besides, I consider it my moral duty to protect you.”

“You,” Qui-Gon says flatly. “Protect – me.”

“Uh,” Anakin blathers. Come to think of it, even he can admit that in this sort of environment – a gym in deepest Brooklyn, where his arms (which he had previously been vaguely, fondly proud of) look like friggin' pipe cleaners compared to some of the guns he's already seen on display (Qui-Gon's aren't even the scariest, dear god) – he's hardly likely to cause alarm, or be capable of providing any sort of backup that would actually involve physical contact.

But hey. It's the principle of the thing. And besides, he's hardly going to let the Auburn Falcon (as was) end up in trouble. I mean, what would the kids do without him?

“What was that?” Qui-Gon asks, in the midst of wrapping his hands with sparring tape – which is when Anakin realizes that he'd said most of that last bit out loud.

“Nothing!” he yelps, and quickly scarpers, without so much as a by-your-leave to the equally-perturbed-seeming Obi-Wan, who is standing behind the desk of the gym looking just as out of place as you might expect.

It had been Anakin's idea, after all, and that's what's galling him so much now. He'd thought it would be a great idea – finally getting Qui-Gon out into a field assignment that he'd actually enjoy (if only for the opportunity to lecture yet more unsuspecting victims on the merits of good diet, exercise, and meditation), finally getting his mojo back. The idea of a sting against the mobsters who were known to frequent the gym was taken up with caution by Windu, and with reluctance by Jinn – but if there's anything anyone at the precinct knew about Qui-Gon, it was that he wouldn't back down from an assignment once it was given.

It was just Anakin's mistake, really, that in the middle of them prepping Qui-Gon for the job they'd managed to have a Kids' Day at the precinct, and that he hadn't headed off his own feelings when it turned out to be the kids from a local school where Qui-Gon was a mentor who showed up, clumsy and wide-eyed and loving (oh god, so loving and cute and innocent) and subsequently spent about an hour trailing around behind the massive, gentle-giant sergeant around the cells and the break room and the conference room, and generally making Anakin want to blub like a great big baby about how he was sending their mountain-man into danger.

“Shyeah, you screwed up there,” their teaching assistant had said. Anakin had known her from the neighborhood for years, mostly for being constantly in trouble with a string of petty thefts and affrays – Ahsoka had cleaned up, though, and gotten out, and though she was still Down to Create Chaos it was good to see her, wicked grin and all, in a job she appeared to be very good at, making sure the kids kept in line and communicating, Anakin was astonished to see, in some sort of elaborate emotional code of sighs, glares, and sniggers with Qui-Gon, as though he were her grandfather (which was, frankly, a disturbing thought). “C'mon, Ani, buck up. He's just doing his job.”

“Oh fuck,” Anakin says helplessly; the simultaneous eye-rolling from Padme and Ahsoka in response is almost audible. “I can't let him do this. What if he gets hurt?”

“You monster,” Obi-Wan says, and though he appears to be giggling he's coming down off of it, and now is also at Anakin's side, staring, fascinated, at the spectacle of Qui-Gon and the children. “You'll deprive them of their collective Dad.”

“You are both complete and utter losers,” Padme drawls, sounding totally bored by the entire thing. “Qui-Gon can handle himself.”

“They'll dump his body in the Gowanus,” Obi-Wan whispers. “We'll have to bury an empty coffin.”

 _Abort, abort, ABORT,_ Anakin thinks; he spends the next two days subtly (really not subtly at all) trying to convince Windu and Qui-Gon that the operation as planned is a mistake, and who needs undercover, and surely we can just use a couple of tip-offs and informants to get the guys they want?

He fails, naturally, and so that's why it's ten o'clock at night and he's in a mostly-empty gym getting the shit pummeled out of him by Qui-Gon in a supposedly-fake boxing round while they wait for the heavies to show up, with Obi-Wan watching from the ropes and nervously drumming his fingers on the edge of the ring.

“Come on, Anakin,” Qui-Gon barks, sending in another punch which he probably thinks is barely enough to topple over a feather, but actually makes Anakin wonder where the world went. “Keep your guard up!”

“I'm not sure he's still capable of lifting his arms, Qui,” Obi-Wan calls, definitely amused.

“No but seriously,” Anakin says desperately, just about dodging another strike by hurling himself bodily backwards. “Can't we do this another way? I'm only worried about you – ”

“And I have told you time and again that I do not need your help, Skywalker,” Qui-Gon growls. “Your concern is touching, but I have the situation well in hand.”

“I just don't want you to leave us all behind, man! There are people who need you!” Anakin trails off, pathetically, in the face of Qui-Gon's stern gaze. “I mean – y'know – present company included – ”

“Hey,” Obi-Wan complains.

“And the kids and all – ”

Qui-Gon's eyebrows shoot upwards, and he finally lowers his massive fists so they're planted on his hips. “That's what you've been anxious about, Skywalker? That I'd be put in such danger that I wouldn't be able to fulfill my obligations to the precinct – and the mentoring program?”

“Something like that,” Anakin says weakly. “Or, y'know, just that you'd die and it'd suck.”

Qui-Gon's laugh, when he's stopped staring, is long and deep, more like the rumble of a big cat. “Do you know,” he chuckles, while putting Anakin in an incredibly painful headlock that he apparently thinks is affectionate, “I do believe you might have a heart after all, Skywalker.”

“Thanks,” Anakin wheezes. “Could you just – ”

“Let go, Qui, he's turning purple,” Obi-Wan says through the haze, and when Anakin can breathe again it's to the sight of Kenobi smirking at him, fond and exasperated in the half-light of the gym. “You know, Anakin, that was almost sweet.”

“Don't worry,” Qui-Gon declares, clapping Anakin on the back. “I am fully focused on this moment and I don't intend to let these bastards get away. Speaking of,” he continues, with the briefest of nods towards the door, “I believe your time with me is up, gentlemen. I have another client coming in.”

Anakin needs Obi-Wan's arm to lean on to get him outside, nodding pleasantly on the way to the group of frankly enormous men who are shuffling like the neanderthals they no doubt are into the boxing area; one of them he recognizes as the capo's son they've been trying to bring down. It still galls him to be leaving Qui-Gon alone with them for more than a few seconds, massive muscles or not, but Obi-Wan is still sniggering at him, and he kind of really _really_ needs to sit down for a minute.

“Right, then,” Obi-Wan says, all business, once he's eased Anakin into the front seat of their plain-clothes squad car; he reaches into the back seat, grabs his holstered gun, and winks at Anakin. “Hang tight. I think Qui will be just about done by now.”

Anakin wishes he could have been there, to see what Obi-Wan had described to him the next morning, in between swigs of coffee and outbreaks of pealing, relieved laughter – Qui-Gon, apparently, with one limb apiece wrapped around each of the wriggling miscreants, calmly saying that Obi-Wan should take his time with the handcuffs – but in the end, his short-term needs won out.

He hurts in so. Many. Places. Most of which he didn't even know _existed_ , and how the _fuck_ does Qui-Gon even _do_ that...

*

**TBC**

*


End file.
